Better to Burn
by FearandLoathingXIX
Summary: Rikku didn't plan to die that way... or at that age... or at ALL, as a matter of fact. Unfortunately for her she did, and her company in the Farplane has much to be desired. Then again he could say the same to her.
1. Chapter 1

Okay so a lot of this will be familiar to some people, because it is taken from a story that has been up here a while of the same name. However, the whole thing stagnated, and the document I'm working from needs a LOT of editing and improving and _cutting_. So I decided to take it down and repost the ENTIRE thing properly with a lot of the crap cut out and much more happening faster.

So while this is vaguely familiar to any who read the first post, new material will be on its way soon, and there have been alterations all across the board as it is. The original NaNo document is a very rough stone, it is my current project to polish it. So here goes nothing.

Note, whole phrases of speech in italics signify Al-bhed language. Just so you know.

POASTED FOR LA!

* * *

"_Brother you retard! Are you trying to get me killed?!_" screamed Rikku in Al-Bhed as she hung half-way out of a machina piston-shaft much bigger than she was with a spanner in one filthy hand_s _and a toolbelt around her waist_. _

"_Whaaaaat_?!" screamed her clownish excuse for a relative from the rickety control-station on top of the machina, one eye on her and another on the dirty magazine he had stashed in his lap.

"_Are you trying to get me killed?!" _she hollered back, her words still incomprehensible under the roar of the machina they'd discovered only yesterday in the underwater lakes of Bevelle. It was one of the oldest artifacts she'd ever seen, centries old at least, so she had a feeling it could tell the right researchers a lot about Spira's past. Provided they could crack it open first; even after all this time it was still sealed tight and half working, which said something for the craftsmenship of their ancestors.

"_I will tell you when to start the engine back up, RIGHT? Don't touch a THING until you hear me tell you to, OKAY?!"_ She _really _didn't need Brother dicking around while she was crawling around a piece of unreliable and potentially dangerous machina like this.

"OKAY! _You got it!" H_e cracked a thumbs up at her, and after sticking her tongue out at him she lifted up her heels and slid all the way down to the end of the shaft, landing on the piston at the end with a thunk. She could just make out a line of clips that held shut the armouring to the next cylinder of the engine in front of her, and after jamming her faithful spanner up into the workings of the machine she yanked it up and the silt-caked hinges cracked open with a rusty 'pchank!'.

Squeezing herself just a little further down, she started making similar adjustments near her feet. However, she hit a little hiccup when her tool got stuck on a particularly rusty fastening and jammed, so she pulled a wrench off her tool belt and started hammering at the stuck spanner hurriedly.

As she smashed away at the trapped tool, she noticed that her feet seemed to be getting very warm and buzzy – which would most likely be because the piston head underneath her feet sounded like it wanted to start spontaneously working again. Worried by this she monkeyed up the shaft a little to reach to Brother.

"_Stop the pistons!_" she ordered, and then crawled back down again to try and pry her spanner free quickly. On top of the machine Brother scratched his head.

"…_Drop the piston?_" he said curiously to himself, but already back in the shaft Rikku couldn't hear him over the clanking of the half-functioning machina; however, she _did _take notice as the engine started to creak louder beneath her feet. "_Drop the piston? What?_"

"_Speak up! What are you doing up there?!_" she screamed, her voice echoing along the shaft.

"_Speed up?... What's going on down there?_" Brother frowned for a moment and then jumped up from his seat; Cid had told them not to take any chances, so he left the controls to go and see what was going on before he touched anything. "Rikku? _You oka--"_ Before he could even finish the word there was an almighty crack, a lever on his control panel slammed open, and piston mechanism released, and powering up the shaft came the now highly-pressurised cork, tearing off huge chunks of shrapnel as it went and flinging everything else in its way along with it.

She didn't even have time to scream.

* * *

On the ever sunny island of Besaid, Yuna sat in a cool shaded tent with a ball of wool in her lap; she was attemptting to knit. Focus on the _attempt_… her efforts didn't look nearly as neat or pretty as all of Lulu's home-knitted baby clothes did.

"Oohh... why can't I do this?" she groaned as it all came undone yet again and she threw her half-hearted efforts to the floor – if she could save Spira twice over then how could something so simple as _knitting_ be so hard?

In fact, the very reason she was sitting here trying to knit was the same thing preventing her from adventuring off to save the world a third time. She put a hand to her stomach and wondered if it was just her imagination that made it feel like there was already something growing there.

She was distracted by familiar laughter, and still wet from his Blitzball training, Tidus bounded into their home with a grin that still hadn't changed since he was young.

"You know... I don't think you're doing that _quite_ right," he remarked as he looked down at the knitting she'd petulantly thrown on the floor.

"Then _you_ do it," she retorted, and squeezed her eyes shut in a grimace as he leant over, dripping everywhere, to press a kiss on top of her head. Which was more wet than anything else.

"You'll get it," he said reassuringly, as he crossed the tent to pick up a washcloth.

By the time he turned back, he noticed that Yuna had her hand on her stomach again and was looking distant and sad all of a sudden – he'd seen that look enough in their past, but things had been so much better in recent years that he'd almost forgotten what her troubled face looked like.

"You ok, Yuna?" he asked delicately, and her gaze drifted over towards him like she wasn't really seeing him at all. "Is it the baby?" he said more worriedly, and felt a bolt of relief when she shook her head.

"No... something else," she said quietly, "something's... wrong."

"What?" he asked, becoming more urgent. "What is it, Yuna?" Just then they heard the sound of airship engines flying low over the island. Besaid was not under any travel routes and was so far out of the way that airships this low could only be looking to land.

They both scrambled to their feet and rushed outside along with many of the other confused villagers; everyone looked up into the sky to see the largest Al-Bhed airship in Spira circling above the island. The flagship and home of Cid, the leader of the Al-Bhed, was coming down close and looking to land.

"Why are they flying red flags?" Yuna asked as the ship drew closer, and sure enough the airship had bold red banners trailing behind it and others hanging from every free corner and edge. The platform lowered and Cid and Brother walked down followed by a huge procession of other Al-Bhed; they all wore red robes and paint markings all over their bodies.

Tidus didn't say a word; he _couldn't _say it.

Unlike some of his other companions or residents of this village, he'd spent time with a crew of _real_ Al-Bhed: the dirty, smelly, violent bilge rats who'd clung to the bottom of Spira when they were chased out of everywhere else. He'd learnt their language and befriended their leader, and he knew of their traditions... he _knew _what red meant to them.

"Oh... shit," he breathed at last, as Cid strode into the village without a single glance at the New Yevon priests – his red robe billowing proudly behind him – and marched straight up to Yuna, Tidus tightly gripping her hand tightly beside her. Wakka and Lulu had already joined them, their silenced children clinging meekly to their mother's skirts in fear, as if even they could sense the impending tragedy.

"I've got some bad news, kids."

Yuna's crying could've woken the Fayth that night, had she not stopped their dreaming many years ago.

* * *

Act I

* * *

Rikku opened her eyes and sat bolt upright with a slightly belated scream. In fact moving in any direction at all was a surprising motion to her, because last time she checked a spine wasn't on her list of functional body parts. After accomplishing this movement with the greatest of ease, she breathed a sigh of relief and thanked the Fayth for the medical advances of Spirian healthcare.

The things they could do with a mega phoenix and bit of curagaja these days was amazing.

She then went on to wonder if she was under the effects of some kind of hypnotic painkillers, because for _one _she felt no pain and that was unusual considering the last thing she remembered was knowing that she was going to be subjected to some very serious 'owie'. For _two, _she felt very light, not light-headed, but bodily light, as if she might float away in a breeze. Then she remembered _why _she was in hospital, and who exactly she was intending to blame.

"_Brother this is the last time you do this to me!" _she shouted to no one in particular, and was rather pleased to find her voice strong and loud and not at all impaired by her accident. _"Or maybe you really do want me dead, huh? _Doctor! Doctor!" she called out for the nearest attending physician, "I want this guy arrested! He wants to _kill _me!"

A little way off, someone let out a tense breath and ground his teeth together; he knew that what was about to come would not be easy, but he didn't have a choice.

"I wouldn't say that," he said quietly, watching Rikku's back rippling and swaying in the mist before him.

"Sure," she quipped merrily, "you don't _say _that, Brother, but… hey, wait. You're not Brother." It finally struck her at this point that for Brother, Brother sure didn't sound like Brother right now. He wasn't speaking Al-Bhed either, and at the same time a few other tiny little things came to her notice.

Firstly, if she was in a hospital it sure was a funny one, because now she looked around it didn't have a bed, nurses, machines or even _walls_. In fact, she appeared to be lying abandoned on the ground in the middle of some kind of smoke storm, because all around her billowed great clouds of luminescent smoke. What kind of a hospital _was _this, she also asked herself_, _because surely no one in their right mind would ever employ Auron as a doctor. He had the bedside manner of a shoopuf in a china shop.

Wait! _Auron_?

"AHHHH!" she screamed as if she'd seen a ghost, which considering the circumstances she had_._

Auron looked as poker-faced as always, with his arms crossed tighly over his chest and a slight wince creasing one of his eyes. However these small points of interest failed to distract from the much larger issue of it actually being _him _standing there_._

He didn't say anything, but this fact of his being him, and most definitely _him_, was more than enough to scare the socks off Rikku.

"Rikk–" he began.

"AHHH!" she carried screaming, without even taking a breath for a good minute, until everything finally went black.

It would've been nice for Rikku if she _had_ fainted, because it'd mean she wouldn't have to be aware of how she _hadn't_. Instead she was curled up in a ball bashing her fists against her head.

"WakeUpRikku! WakeUpRikku! WakeUpRikku! _WakeUpRikku_!" she screeched as she pounded her hands against her temples, and had it not been for the intervention of her watchman she might have remained like that for the foreseeable future.

"Ahem," Auron made a sort of strangled grunting noise in his throat, as if to say,_ '_this screaming and repetition of the same phrase over and over is beginning to rather irritate me'_, _which was an Auron sort of thing to say_._ It was a sound that many, _many_ years ago Rikku had once heard quite frequently, but it was so long past she didn't give it a second's notice at this point and carried on yelling.

"AHEM!" he coughed loudly this time, and Rikku opened her eyes for a moment to seek out the source of the sound. She was of course met with the same man she'd been looking at not moments ago – Auron the 'Legendary Guardian' of times before the Eternal Calm. Little did _he _know but there had been a play written about him some years after his sending, although he wasn't nearly as crabby in it as he was in real life. Or such an alcoholic.

"You're supposed to be dead!" she pointed at Auron and screamed very accusingly at him; leaning back against the blade of a large sword he made another of his bemused-come-losing-his-patience sighs.

"I am," was his very concise answer. Rikku was silent for a moment as if to take in this information.

"Waaaaah!" She screwed her eyes shut again and tried to beat reality back into her head – she told herself this was because of the drugs, or some kind of trippy coma dream. Or a coma nightmare, considering Auron was here and not someone she actually liked.

"Rikku-" he started, but never managed to finish his sentence before he was drowned out by one who was far to used to being the loudest person at each and every social event.

"Oh noo, oh no no no, oh no oh no oh _noooooo!_" she sobbed with tears of panic in her eyes. Before anything more could become of her the lights went out again, and it _still _wasn't because she had fainted.

Auron had in fact walked close enough to her to reach out and place one of his hands entirely over her face, covering her eyes completley and filling her nose with the stinky-leather smell of his gauntlet.

"_Rikku_," he said sternly, gripping her firmly and holding her still, "stop screaming_._" He had never really tolerated loud or grating noises very well, and even though she had no idea where she was or what was going on or why _he _was here too, the latent threat in his words actually managed to silence her for the moment.

"Now," he instructed, "calm down." It was about now that Rikku recalled the little eye-covering hoods she saw riders putting on their chocobos to calm them down when they were panicking. She resented the presumption that like a big stupid yellow bird she would stop warking if you just covered her eyes and told her to chill out, but she didn't quite dare to tell him.

While he still had his hand over her eyes a pyrefly rose out of Auron's arm, drifted down it and then merged into Rikku after a little prod of encouragement. Another pyrefly popped out of his elbow and fluttered down to sink into her shoulder, and as more and more transferred between them this way, his arm became fainter and translucent as the creatures seeped away from it; however, a slight shake of his body rebalanced it and he solidified again.

Rikku's form, which had until now been unstable and distorted by even the weakest breezes around them, began to even out. Her breathing calmed, as she felt strength seeping into her body that managed to still her hands from shaking and breath from racing so much.

Auron removed his hand from her face at last, and she looked over her shoulder at him in curiosity, then confusion, then some kind of anger.

"Hey!" She raised a finger and pointed it at him in outrage. "_You're_ supposed to be dead!" Auron nearly rolled his eyes but managed to restrain himself for the sake of his contract. If he rolled his eyes every time something like this was going to happen he would end up with inverted sight within the hour.

"Once again," he said very tensely, "I _AM_. So are-"

"Noo ohh no you don't... oh no, no oh _nooo_…" Rikku started up wailing again, and Auron wondered if she had possibly materialised with only part of her _brain _as well_, _so that she was subsequently only able to say a grand total of three things.

"Don't-" he said weakly, but recovering her vision again meant that Rikku was once more looking around them at the odd golden smoke that whirled around the small circle about ten meters across that isolated them.

"Ahhh _uh-ohhh_!" She crambled frantically to her feet, and staggerd around like a baby just learning to walk or a drunkard. As she got close to the edge of the circle the golden mist was repelled away from her and a tiny path opened up.

She shot a glance back over her shoulder at Auron, and then took off.

He sighed and returned to his sword, which was stuck in the ground where he had left it; he settled his weight against the flat of the blade and tucked an arm into his robe, and then let his eyes droop a little and waited for her.

Rikku sped past the clouds, the mist swirling away from her and then whipping closed behind her like cloud-trails on airships. Although this path did not bend or turn, as such, it still seemed to move, twisting and curving almost too subtly to detect as she ran down it. It was _away_, though, so that was enough for now.

The path _had _to end somewhere, she reasoned, and rightly so; ahead of her she saw the clouds part to reveal another clearing.

"Yes!" she cheered and pumped a fist in the air, bursting into a sprint and leaping into the circle. She skidded to a stop mere centimetres short of slicing herself neatly in two on a sword – stuck into the ground by a man only just taller than it was, who had not moved so much as a muscle.

She looked up at him, even though she didn't want to because she knew it would only upset her.

"Fun run?" he said coldly, and Rikku's eyes widened as she realized the problem with her one and only plan of running.

"You're…" she gasped quietly.

"_Do not _say that I am 'supposed to be dead'," he interrupted crossly, "because I _know _and I _am, _and don't-" he started in vain, but there was no hope because before he could even think to finish she had started up again.

"Ahhh!" Rikku screamed, turned her back and ran away again, disappearing through the mist around their circle only to reappear a few moments later on the other side, whereupon she caught sight of him once more.

"Ahhhhh!" She turned ninety degrees and dived head first through another facet of the clouds, landing straight back in the circle onto her stomach right behind Auron's feet, with her nose just brushing the back of one of his ankles.

"-_scream,_" he finished wearily. This was going to take longer than he'd hoped. A _lot _longer.

* * *

Ta-da. Two chapters become one in about 1k less of the words. For my next trick I will merge the following howevermany chapters into smaller ones and post them at regular intervals. Ish. Happy reading!


	2. Chapter 2

BUJUMUHWUH! AN UPDATE! WHAT IS THIS B/S?!

No really, I updated moar of edited re-shinied and condensed thisstory. There's actually quite a bit of new material in this, seeing as I have been screwing with the chronology of things a fair bit. Anyways, ENJOY ENJOY.

* * *

Rikku was taking some time out from... well, from everything.

"Rikku," Auron called over to her. "_Rikku_?"

She was sat with her back to him, staring through space – not even into it, straight _through _it – and didn't react to his attempts to speak to her. She was letting her mind take a little away time from her body, and the subordinate it left in charge couldn't do anything except keep her upright and breathing. If she really was breathing, that is. She wasn't sure of much anymore.

"You are going to have to listen to me sooner or later," he said coldly. "You can't carry on doing that forever."

Rikku didn't respond; her large green eyes gazed off into the distance, unblinking. Auron couldn't decide if this was better or worse than the screaming.

"Fine." He picked up his sword and walked past her, heading out into the swirling clouds that surrounded this tiny clearing in a seemingly endless storm. "Farewell."

Her eyes made the smallest movement as he walked off, following him as he left. She expected to see him back soon – after all if _she _couldn't escape this what chance did he have?

Only he _didn't_ come back. Rikku sat there awhile longer, but as more and more time passed and Auron still didn't return, she began to worry. He'd done this to her before; any time she didn't want to go along with something he had just insisted that everyone _abandon _her until she complied.

So even if she didn't exactly want to be here – wherever _here_ was – with him, she didn't want to be on her own even more. Being alone was second on her list of things she'd rather suck a Hypello's head than have to do, the other thing being doing laundry.

"Um..." she made a quiet noise as she exhaled and started glancing around nervously. "Aur-"

"That did it," his voice interrupted hers before she even finished, and he strolled back through the clouds in the same place he'd left them through. "I take it you are willing to communicate now?" She realized that he'd just been _standing _a few meters off in the clouds waiting for her to crack; he'd never actually gone anywhere, just walked off and made it look like he'd left!

So she refused to talk to him anyway, for playing such a rotten trick on her.

"Rikku?" Auron repeated tiredly, but although her eyes followed him she wouldn't speak. "This is very unlike you," he remarked, "...so quiet." He sounded just a little too pleased with the last comment.

"Well how would you know? Huh!" she snapped at him. "Who are_ you _anyway?"

Auron didn't bother gracing such a stupid question with a reply. She was more than aware of who he was. He just gave her a look conveying his contempt for the foolishness he refused to answer to.

"Well I mean, who _are _you actually? Sure, we were both Yunie's Guardians before Sin was killed_, _but it was only for like, eight months tops, and _that_ was so long ago now it's taught in history class!" At this Auron's brow furrowed in thought.

"How long ago?" he questioned, and Rikku shot him a demeaning look for not knowing when was when.

"What? Since the Eternal Calm?" She quietened down momentarily and started to count off the years that had passed since she and her cousin had completed the last Pilgrimage of Spira. "Well let's see… four-five-six? Wait, how old am I? Hmm... well it was about Seven years ago..._ish_." Auron looked marginally surprised, and almost saddened.

"I see," he said quietly, and Rikku gave him another odd glance.

"What's 'you see'?" she demanded.

"Time here passes differently, I had no idea how long it has been in Spira," he explained. "But if that is right, then _you_..." he broke off into a sort of mumble, and looked away as he rubbed his fingers along the back of his neck thoughtfully.

"What?" she questioned. "But _me_ what?"

"You cannot be more than twenty two…" he murmured. "Are you really so young?"

He sounded quite put out about this for someone who had nothing to do with it, and the sting of hearing someone else pity her young death was more unpleasant than Rikku cared to admit, so she decided to take the tough-girl approach to it, lest she start crying.

"How would _you_ know," she replied. "It's rude to ask a lady's age don'tchaknow... I bet you didn't even know how old I was during the Pilgrimage anyways." She tried to cover up how her voice wavered slightly, but knowing him he saw through it completely anyway, and didn't comment for her sake.

"You are fifteen," he answered softly.

"I _was_ fifteen," she corrected, "I _am_ twenty-one as a matter of fact." He was right, she was too young for this afterlife thing, but she tried not to think about it.

"You _are_ fifteen," he repeated in a far more patronising tone, and she had to resist the impulse to snap at him, because Auron wasn't really the sort of person you got away with things like that.

"I _am_ twenty-one!" she insisted, and it was only after Auron stared right at her for a painfully awkward length of time that she took his lead and had a look at herself.

She was wearing that long-abandoned orange top of hers and the green shorts – the ones that hadn't fit her since the Pilgrimage ended. Hell, she was certain that she was a little shorter as well, as her body wasn't half as grown up as it was last time she had the pleasure of being acquainted with it.

"Ahh!" she shrieked in surprise. "What the frig?!"

"Things work differently here," Auron explained, already growing sick of having to explain even the most menial things, "you see, the…"

"I think I might go and sit over there again..." she mumbled, rubbing her eyes with her hands and hanging her head; this was all too much for her to take in, not to mention the effort of having to mentally tap dance around that thing _she wasn't thinking about._

"Don't bother," he snapped, with a look that suggested if she didn't want her ass handed to her she should sit down and listen up. "I will start with a simple explanation. Here, it is memories that make us what we are."

"...Wait, what?" she asked, already completely bemused.

"Everything around us, even how we appear, is dependent on memories. Through memories that live on of us in Spira we can exist how we are here, and by manipulating them with our own consciousness we can exert changes over ourselves." Rikku still looked somewhat lost, so he attempted an example.

"You appear as you are right now in a body much younger than your eldest age; this is because you are weakened and new to this plane, so my memories and your memories have combined to create the strongest and most stable form available – how _I_ last saw you."

"Are you saying I'm weak?" she said in a rather offended tone.

"Right now you are," he replied impatiently, not wanting to quibble with her.

"I'm not weak. I'll... I'll kick your butt!" she somewhat ineffectually threatened, and Auron couldn't hold back another tired and frustrated sigh.

"Remember that although you may change your form and appearance, your _behaviour _always stays true." He gave her a low look.

"Uh?"

"It means your looking like a child doesn't give you an excuse to act like one," he snapped, which Rikku responded to by sticking out her tongue at him and muttering something in Al-Bhed, which he expected probably wasn't praise.

Neither spoke for a few cold minutes, as if to prove his last point. Eventually he was about to speak up himself because the longer she didn't communicate the longer they were _stuck here, _when she second-guessed him.

"So if I wanted to I could change back to being older?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered. "You simply need to control the pyreflies." He was pleased at least that she was asking rational questions and making sense for once.

"Pyreflies?" she sounded confused again.

"They make up everything here."

"Here?" she questioned it before she could remember that she didn't want to know the answer.

"The Farplan-" One more time than 'one time too many', Auron found himself interrupted.

"Uh-uh! No don't answer that actually!" she rushed loudly and put her hands over her ears. "I'm... I'm _not _dead, Auron! I'm _not_ and you _aren't _going to say the Farplane because I'm DEFINITELY not there!"

It was here that they hit the first and biggest hurdle of them all – denial. Unfortunately for Rikku, Auron wasn't the subtlest of guides and he didn't see the point in indulging her. Even though he'd faced _his_ denial by walking the land as an unsent for a decade until he was good and ready to pass on without any objections, he didn't mince his words for her.

"Yes you are," he said quietly. "I am sorry for you, Rikku – I must express that – but you _have_ passed away. You died. You are on the Farplane now."

The footing of her little dance of denial finally slipped, and the awful reality came crashing down on her. She dropped slowly to her knees and then crumpled over like a machine with all its important parts missing.

"Who was I trying to kid?" she wept ashamedly, burying her face in her hands again.

"Yourself."

"It was a rhetorical question, jerkface," she said bitterly, and didn't speak again for some time. "I'm really... I'm really dead," she groaned.

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," she said blankly; performing the motions without a soul at the controls anymore.

Auron had to admit to himself that he was completely lost, as this wasn't a situation you could rationalise away or point out a good side to. Even he could see she was far too young to be here, just like he'd been. He knew better than anyone that there was no consolation, no upside, it was just one great big injustice.

Still, he had to try. This is what he was contracted for.

"It's not fair..." she whimpered after a little while.

"I know," he said. "I... felt the same way."

Rikku perked up a little, having forgotten that detail – although she knew Auron when he was around the stage of becoming a grumpy old man, he'd _actually_ died a long time ago, or so Tidus told her. He probably wasn't much older than she was when he took the one-way train to the Farplane.

"Well, _you _got to stick around in Spira at least," she said petulantly.

"It's no life as an unsent," he told her.

"It's better than this," she muttered. "_Anything _would be better than this."

"Not so," he countered, but would not expand upon his reasoning.

"Why not?" she demanded. "At least then I could still be with my friends, I could still carry on with my life, I could still..."

"Pretend you were not dead?" he cut in, and then taking a step towards her knelt down to her level, looking her in the eye. "Believe me, Rikku," he murmured. "It does not work."

Rikku heaved a sign and buried her face in her arms again. Damn Auron and his serious-convincing-man-talk.

"This _sucks_," she muttered.

"Yes," Auron agreed heartily, although those might not have been the words he would've chosen to describe it.

"Well... how do I do this age-thing," she asked eventually. "I'd feel better if I didn't have to keep looking at me seven years ago, I think."

"Good," Auron almost purred – any progress to him was good progress, as it took him closer to the end of this cursed mentoring contract the Fayth had lumped him with. "It is very simple: you energise the pyreflies that compose you, and manipulate them into taking the memory of yourself that you have in your mind – they will conform to this as long as you have strong enough memories."

"You know, you definitely shouldn't teach." She remarked brightly, "I barely got a word of that."

"Ug," he grunted, "this action isn't difficult to perform, but perhaps you'll be glad to know I have _never_ considered teaching, and did not exactly volunteer for this."

"This?" She echoed curiously, "what's 'this'?"

"Our contract," he explained glibly. "To help new souls passing adjust to the Farplane, a guide of sorts is assigned to each person. Usually a figure of respect from their past already on the Farplane."

"A figure of _respect_?" she echoed, staring at him scathingly.

"If lacking that, it will settle for the next best thing," he replied sourly.

"So someone who will kick my ass?" she suggested.

"Quite possibly," he did not so much as reply to the question as outright threaten her at this point. "What you see now around us is still only a small part of the Farplane, as until you have grasped the basics you will have to remain here… under my tutelage." He said the last bit somewhat begrudgingly.

"You seem _so_ thrilled to see me," she said sarcastically.

"I did not wish to be contracted to _anyone," _he replied. "It is nothing personal." Rikku rolled her eyes, expecting that in Auron's head that sounded like a perfectly reasonable thing to say.

"Well _I _didn't pick you either."

"I know," he groaned. "However, Rikku, it is in your interests to learn because _until _you do then we are not going anywhere." This was true in spite of how much he desperately wished it wasn't. Dealing with teenagers had never been something he_ ever _enjoyed, he only just tolerated it when they were going to save all Spira.

"Huuuhmokaaaay," she whined. "I'll try, okay? Now what do I _do_?"

"I believe I explained that already," he said so coldly even Lulu would have been ashamed.

"Well explain it again. In _normal _speak," she retorted. "Like, give me an example of something, instead of trying to explain all the weird non-specific terms."

"Uh..." Auron sighed, trying to recall if this girl was always so infuriating. At last he hit upon an idea that might appeal to a young female mind such as hers. "Then... try to picture what you wore for your... last birthday party?" he said awkwardly, hoping that the example would work, as he didn't have any other ideas.

"Now that's better!" Rikku cheered. "This I can do! Okay, I'll try it," She shut her eyes and grabbed her knees firmly in her hands, rocking backwards and forwards as she tried to imagine all of her insides jangling up and going fizzy, a bit like how you felt if you drank too many of Barkeep's famous 'Hypello Hooch' drinks.

It started with a tingle flickering around her body, and focusing on it she forced it to grow bigger and brighter, keeping the memories of her twenty-first birthday party strong in her mind. Then, slowly, from bottom to top she began to change.

From her heel-clad feet, all the way up her legs, her body changed – filling out a little here, changing shape a little there, and all the while donning the colourful and assaulting garb of the traditional Al-Bhed party girl.

Auron had the uncanny feeling that he'd just watch someone _strip; _the entirety of what Rikku wore barely qualified as a single piece of clothing, not to mention that the majority of exposed skin she now flaunted was covered in body paint, attracting even more attention to her scandalous state of dress.

Rikku flicked open her eyes as the last beads on the braids of her long hair materialized and she looked down at herself.

"Oh _wow_ it worked!" she chirped happily, and stood up unsteadily on her new and slightly longer legs. "Go me!" she cheered, jumping up and punching the air, which – to Auron's discomfort – made her _jiggle _in a horribly inapropriate way.

"It worked? That is _everything _you wore?" he said disbelievingly, and she swung around elegantly to face him, her hair flailing behind her with a rattle as all the beads clicked against each other.

"What, haven't you ever _been_ to a twenty-first birthday party before?" she asked with a wicked grin, and then noticed that Auron was staring like her like she had turned up naked to work and was trying to decide if he should tell her or not, "What're you staring at? Am I missing something?" she questioned dumbly.

"You tell me," he snipped, as he was not aware of the fact that Rikku spent a year and a half travelling Spira in a _bikini top._

"Ohhh," she gasped as she realized what his problem was, "what, are you a prude or something, Auron?" He flinched guiltily with those words – his upbringing had been strict, not least because he was incorporated into a _monastery _when he was about eleven – so perhaps he wasn't as liberal as the average Spirian as far as certain things were concerned.

"Hey, lighten up! This is totally normal Al-Bhed party-wear," she explained proudly.

"I see…" he muttered dourly. "I never had the chance to attend an Al-Bhed celebration." Rikku snapped her fingers knowingly.

"Oh, that makes sense," she hummed. "The vyodrgemmanc never were the best at throwing parties." Auron gave her a lookthat pointed out he did not speak her language therefore couldn't understand what she said _(faythkillers)._

"Oh… um," Rikku wondered how exactly to phrase herself. "That word… it's... what Al-Bhed call the Yevonites." Auron read the guilt in her face and knew instinctively that he was not hearing the most literal translation of that word she had used; however, he let it be for now, as he had more important things to pursue.

"Scandalous traditions aside..." he began glibly.

"Hey!" she interrupted. "Don't' mock our traditions just because Yevon doesn't know how to have _fun_."

"So _that's_ what they call it these days," he growled under his breath, and rather to her own surprise Rikku detected the ghost of humour in his tone.

"That could almost be considered a joke, Auron, I'd be careful if I were you," she taunted, and he scowled at the assumption that he didn't have a sense of humour. Forgive a man for not having time for humour when he was _dead._

"Just... transform again," he requested wearily. "The sooner you grasp it fully the sooner we can get out of here."

"You could _try_ saying it like you don't want to drop me like a tonne of Macalania Musicians," Rikku suggested sourly.

"_No_ I couldn't," he grumbled under his breath, wishing that he had at least been contracted to someone less trying; although, much to his relief, Rikku did follow his instructions and set about cycling through some more clothing and age changes, meeting the task well.

Perhaps there was still some hope for her, he thought with new optimism.

* * *

I dedicate this to MISS LA EDITOR who does not like Aurikku anymore. Because in this even _they_ don't like each other.

Reviews are 'preciated but not compulsory.


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